I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything Thomas Henry Huxley

To commence writing, be it a text for a column, a letter to someone dear, an essay, or anything else for that matter, is the single most cumbersome (read: the most odious) work to me. On top of that, truth be told, I don’t even have any special experience with it.

I could begin this column with a little exhibition of a circle proper. Just for the fun’s sake. I couldn’t but begin this column by giving credit to both of my grandfathers without whom I wouldn’t be writing this today. At least I wouldn’t be writing something on this particular, agreed on, topic. There, the circle is closed!The first one, my paternal grandfather, never talked about anything beyond that which he conceived of as real, that is, anything beyond the tangible, everyday stuff such as the news, politics, economy, travel, etc. skeptical with words, he spoke little of things he couldn’t touch or explain. I might never know for sure how he felt deep inside, but I do know that he was the one who evoked in me a great curiosity. He did this by giving me a book for my birthday. It was “Mysteries” by Arthur C. Clarke.

My grandfather knew I’d been steeped into fantasy and science fiction ever since I could read. He probably just thought that that present would make my special day even more special. Many will still remember in its heyday “Mysteries” was an international bestseller and a colorful decoration of all major bookstore window-displays with its attractive cover featuring a skull lit up by the sun-rays breaking through from behind it. My grandfather must have thought: “Ha, there is a hysterical fantasy-book for ya! Nino’s gonna trip when he unchains this baby from its wrapper-shackles”. Looking at the book in front of me, I delighted in its covers and thought something along the giver’s lines, but did not have an inkling of the sense that, once I’d comprehend what the whole somewhat shallow volume was all about, I would sail off into the exciting seas of questions with no answers, that I would walk on beyond the edge of scientific explanation and conceive that we exist in a world that itself is an infinitesimal part of the universe and in that world, for all our prejudices, beliefs and abuse of nature, we don’t amount to much. . . We’re nothing. It might be appropriate to add . . . If the humans, as a whole, are so insignificant, how insignificant must be all those ideas milling about their little heads, the very same ones they often present to others as obvious facts? Often the ‘presentations’ of such ideas are done by force and to the expense of others.

But, what ya gonna do? Here we are and we can’t help it - we don’t know any better than a dog fetching a stick. Be humans what they may, that fact is we do exist, we are a part of a greater whole and, at least as such, we deserve to be considered with some significance. Lest the nature in its ever-stepping ahead, as I colorfully imagine this possibility, squashes us like we do a bug we don’t notice crawling beneath our shoe soles.

And so a year has gone by and another book came. And then the third one, and the fourth . . . I didn’t even realize that doing research in some borderline pseudo-sciences, but also some widely accepted ones, would become one of my favorite hobbies. I opened Pandora’s box. It’s in my genes to be curious about pretty much anything, so I can’t say my life was ever boring. True, there were occasions when one way or another I was stopped from going out and partying hard, or from hanging out with my friends and going to school, but there was always there some unfinished book, some intriguing text waiting for me at home, the oil for my already burning passion for research, something more to add to my natural drive in quest for answers.

Faiths would have it, my maternal grandfather had similar interests. He probably got interested in such readings even before I was nothing but a twinkle in my parents’ eyes. Hence, there was nothing surprising in the fact that he was in possession of old books authored by folks like Daniken, Charroux and that, naturally, he had the complete volumes by the Bosnian ‘secret-and-mystery hunter’ and writer Ahmed Bosnić. Having blazed through Clarke’s trilogy several times, I concluded that books need not be a hated enemy, as most of my class - me included - perceived them to be, but could even be a cool thing. That’s how I suddenly discovered my maternal grandfather’s interests and that’s how the aforementioned books, that were pushed back on his book-shelves and had been collecting dust for ages, started to gain ground among the books in the front. The whole scene seemed out of some 3-dimensional painting where the books wrestled away from the background and protruded into the first plan. Soon after, having read them the course for my journey into the unknown was set.

Having passed a part of this exciting journey, I today harbor some built-up conceptions in my humble little head. Do note, the things I wish to share with the visitors to Cavtatportal.com will be the things that I stand for and the texts written from my viewpoint.

Naturally, I am hopeful such writing will not cause discomfort to anyone. Like I said, all that I will write about is a natural outgrowth of my spare-time hobby. I’d be pleased if I get feedback telling me I added a bit of well-matching spice to Vinko’s nicely cooked web-pages.

All in all, I prefer to come off the philosophizing a bit and go straight to some grounded texts that will here and there be sprinkled with my opinions, principles, hypothesis. And there is much to scribble about. When listening in a dialogue, I sometimes blink or raise a brow like some hard-core sage. Then I respond back with the notion which I think true: that the world is not always such as we experience it with our five senses nor is it such as we imagine it to be - the world taught to us by science and schoolbooks. The world is filled with riddles that await explanations. Or affirmations that they cannot be solved. Numerous are the types of mysteries and it’d be good to classify them. It’d be even better to draw parallels between the varies phenomena and somehow synthesize them into a unified opinion, a theory that would unify them irrespective of their differences or type.

For instance, there are two big enigmas - within the scientific domain - that occupy the thoughts of the biggest and the brightest in the world’s scientific community. They have to the with the universe and its two (non) existing ends of the matter-size: the (non) existing end of the small, and the (non) existing end of the large. Is there an end we can reach through the microscope? The telescope? If there even is a sane answer to these two questions, how can we then take those answers and unify them into a theory of everything, a theory of the final definition of universe and our purpose in it?

God(s) was always a golden, ready-made substitute for anything we couldn’t explain. That’s why it was always so difficult to define God. God is at once a gray-bearded old man and something invisible, not defined. The more the humans evolved and the more our minds and our technologies advanced, the more of the God’s name’s golden glow was lost.

It is interesting to note how much of the philosophy, physics, religion and a great number of other disciplines is increasingly synthesizing in proportion with the time passed and the civilization level reached. And, if we were to finally surmise our single unifying theory about the way universe works, we would perhaps then ponder who is behind the whole project of this incredible and complex system called the universe. God or...? There, even when we reach the pinnacle of comprehension, we invite some new perplexing questions and repolish the God’s dimmed shine. And so it goes, over and over again.

But, let us leave this to the superbrains and the real philosophers to dwell on. We only ask that, should stumble onto something important, to package and deliver to us their findings in ways comprehensible. To us, mere mortals, it’s just fun and exciting to learn about the facts that are sometimes so unbelievable to border with insane, but in some weird way fit well and natural into the aforementioned mysterious and complex universe.

Let us play a game in which the peons will be the facts about the unbelievable. Let us play with those peons, let us ponder them, speculate them, let us sometimes get the goose bumps from freight and other times offer an explanation that we like and suites us best. One thing is certain, the world is much more incredible than many would admit. It is open to all options and it never stops fascinating us with its surprises and, often, the deeply-buried secrets that surround them.

As the proof to that serve the facts about inexplicable phenomena, occurrences, anomalies and mysteries which are everpresent in all corners of our planet and beyond it.

With a bit of will and time, let that be the theme for my next column.

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Nino
Martinović

nino@cavtatportal.comBorn in
Dubrovnik in 1972.
After high school, moved to
Gothenburg, Sweden. Been living
there since. Nino works for a Scandic Hotel in two capacities:
as a breakfast coordinator and a
technician (technical
maintenance services). In his
spare time Nino lets the good
times roll :-), reads
interesting books and, having
quite a large personal music
library, chills out with some
tunes, creates a mix or two and,
occasionally, DJ. During all
that time Nino counts down the
days till yet another visit to
his native Dubrovnik :-)